Generating hypergraph representations of dialog

Abstract

Methods, systems and computer program products for generating hypergraph representations of dialog are provided herein. A computer-implemented method includes analyzing at least one dialog to identify one or more topics and one or more contributions by one or more persons to the one or more topics, tracking evolution of the identified topics over time in the at least one dialog, generating a hypergraph representation of the at least one dialog utilizing the identified topics, the identified contributions and the tracked evolution of the identified topics, and providing an interactive visualization tool based on the hypergraph representation of the at least one dialog.

The invention claimed is: 
     
       1. A computer-implemented method, comprising steps of:
 analyzing at least one dialog to identify (i) one or more topics and (ii) one or more contributions by one or more persons to the one or more topics; 
 tracking evolution of the identified topics over time in said at least one dialog; 
 generating a hypergraph representation of said at least one dialog utilizing (i) the identified topics, (ii) the identified contributions and (iii) the tracked evolution of the identified topics, wherein the hypergraph representation comprises (i) a plurality of nodes corresponding to respective ones of the persons contributing to the identified topics and (ii) a plurality of hypergraph edges, wherein each hypergraph edge is associated with a given one of the identified topics and connects at least two of the nodes, wherein each of the plurality of nodes is associated with multiple attributes, the multiple attributes comprising (i) a name, (ii) one or more areas of interest and (iii) a position within an organization, and wherein the multiple attributes associated with a given node are utilized to weight contributions of the person corresponding to the given node for one or more topics; and 
 providing an interactive visualization tool based on the hypergraph representation of said at least one dialog, wherein the interactive visualization tool comprises at least one interface feature for tracking evolution of a given topic utilizing subgraph containment in the hypergraph representation, and wherein the at least one interface feature for tracking evolution of a given topic permits selection of a given hypergraph edge to present a timeline showing the evolution of the given topic, with inputs from different nodes at particular times, associated with (i) the given hypergraph edge and (ii) one or more other hypergraph edges contained within the given hypergraph edge, and wherein the interactive visualization tool comprises at least one interface feature for identifying one or more connections between given persons participating in the dialog utilizing hypergraph edge counts pertaining to the number of hypergraph edges to which the nodes corresponding to the given persons are contributors; 
 wherein the steps are carried out by at least one computing device. 
 
     
     
       2. The computer-implemented method of  claim 1 , wherein at least one of the hypergraph edges connects at least three of the nodes. 
     
     
       3. The computer-implemented method of  claim 1 , wherein each of the hypergraph edges is associated with one or more attributes, the one or more attributes comprising (i) a time-stamp and (ii) a sentiment value. 
     
     
       4. The computer-implemented method of  claim 1 , wherein providing the interactive visualization tool comprises transmitting the hypergraph representation over at least one network to a client device associated with a user to instantiate the interactive visualization tool on the client device. 
     
     
       5. The computer-implemented method of  claim 1 , wherein the interactive visualization tool comprises a plurality of interface features, wherein access to respective ones of the interface features is restricted based on the identity of a user of the interactive visualization tool. 
     
     
       6. The computer-implemented method of  claim 1 , wherein the interactive visualization tool comprises at least one interface feature for selectively displaying hypergraph edges of the hypergraph representation. 
     
     
       7. The computer-implemented method of  claim 1 , wherein the interactive visualization tool comprises at least one interface feature for path-finding in the hypergraph representation. 
     
     
       8. The computer-implemented method of  claim 1 , wherein said analyzing the at least one dialog comprises utilizing (i) topic modeling and (ii) sentiment analysis. 
     
     
       9. The computer-implemented method of  claim 8 , wherein the topic modeling utilizes supervised Latent Dirichlet allocation (SLDA) modeling and the sentiment analysis utilizes Aspect and Sentiment Unification Model (ASUM). 
     
     
       10. The computer-implemented method of  claim 1 , wherein said tracking the evolution of the identified topics over time is based on:
 a linguistic distance measuring drift in topics and/or sentiments expressed in respective portions of the at least one dialog; 
 a temporal distance measuring a time difference between the portions of the at least one dialog; and 
 a personal distance measuring a distance between communicating persons for the portions of the at least one dialog. 
 
     
     
       11. The computer-implemented method of  claim 10 , wherein said tracking the evolution of the identified topics over time comprises computing a penalty based on (i) the linguistic distance, (ii) the temporal distance and (iii) the personal distance to identify the evolution between and within respective ones of the identified topics. 
     
     
       12. A computer program product, the computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therewith, the program instructions executable by a device to cause the device to:
 analyze at least one dialog to identify (i) one or more topics and (ii) one or more contributions by one or more persons to the one or more topics; 
 track evolution of the identified topics over time in said at least one dialog; 
 generate a hypergraph representation of said at least one dialog utilizing (i) the identified topics, (ii) the identified contributions and (iii) the tracked evolution of the identified topics, wherein the hypergraph representation comprises (i) a plurality of nodes corresponding to respective ones of the persons contributing to the identified topics and (ii) a plurality of hypergraph edges, wherein each hypergraph edge is associated with a given one of the identified topics and connects at least two of the nodes, wherein each of the plurality of nodes is associated with multiple attributes, the multiple attributes comprising (i) a name, (ii) one or more areas of interest and (iii) a position within an organization, and wherein the multiple attributes associated with a given node are utilized to weight contributions of the person corresponding to the given node for one or more topics; and 
 provide an interactive visualization tool based on the hypergraph representation of said at least one dialog, wherein the interactive visualization tool comprises at least one interface feature for tracking evolution of a given topic utilizing subgraph containment in the hypergraph representation, and wherein the at least one interface feature for tracking evolution of a given topic permits selection of a given hypergraph edge to present a timeline showing the evolution of the given topic, with inputs from different nodes at particular times, associated with (i) the given hypergraph edge and (ii) one or more other hypergraph edges contained within the given hypergraph edge, and wherein the interactive visualization tool comprises at least one interface feature for identifying one or more connections between given persons participating in the dialog utilizing hypergraph edge counts pertaining to the number of hypergraph edges to which the nodes corresponding to the given persons are contributors. 
 
     
     
       13. A system comprising:
 a memory; and 
 at least one processor coupled to the memory and configured for:
 analyzing at least one dialog to identify (i) one or more topics and (ii) one or more contributions by one or more persons to the one or more topics; 
 tracking evolution of the identified topics over time in said at least one dialog; 
 generating a hypergraph representation of said at least one dialog utilizing (i) the identified topics, (ii) the identified contributions and (iii) the tracked evolution of the identified topics, wherein the hypergraph representation comprises (i) a plurality of nodes corresponding to respective ones of the persons contributing to the identified topics and (ii) a plurality of hypergraph edges, wherein each hypergraph edge is associated with a given one of the identified topics and connects at least two of the nodes, wherein each of the plurality of nodes is associated with multiple attributes, the multiple attributes comprising (i) a name, (ii) one or more areas of interest and (iii) a position within an organization, and wherein the multiple attributes associated with a given node are utilized to weight contributions of the person corresponding to the given node for one or more topics; and 
 providing an interactive visualization tool based on the hypergraph representation of said at least one dialog, wherein the interactive visualization tool comprises at least one interface feature for tracking evolution of a given topic utilizing subgraph containment in the hypergraph representation, and wherein the at least one interface feature for tracking evolution of a given topic permits selection of a given hypergraph edge to present a timeline showing the evolution of the given topic, with inputs from different nodes at particular times, associated with (i) the given hypergraph edge and (ii) one or more other hypergraph edges contained within the given hypergraph edge, and wherein the interactive visualization tool comprises at least one interface feature for identifying one or more connections between given persons participating in the dialog utilizing hypergraph edge counts pertaining to the number of hypergraph edges to which the nodes corresponding to the given persons are contributors. 
 
 
     
     
       14. A computer-implemented method, comprising steps of:
 receiving at least one dialog; 
 analyzing said at least one dialog using (i) topic modeling and (ii) sentiment analysis to identify topics and sub-topics; 
 utilizing a penalty computation to track evolution of the identified topics and sub-topics over time in said at least one dialog; 
 generating a hypergraph representation of said at least one dialog based on the tracked evolution of the identified topics and sub-topics, wherein the hypergraph representation comprises (i) a plurality of nodes corresponding to persons contributing to the identified topics and sub-topics and (ii) a plurality of hypergraph edges, wherein each hypergraph edge is associated with a given one of the identified topics or sub-topics and connects at least two of the nodes, wherein each of the plurality of nodes is associated with multiple attributes, the multiple attributes comprising (i) a name, (ii) one or more areas of interest and (iii) a position within an organization, and wherein the multiple attributes associated with a given node are utilized to weight contributions of the person corresponding to the given node for one or more topics; and 
 providing an interactive visualization tool based on the hypergraph representation of said at least one dialog, wherein the interactive visualization tool comprises at least one interface feature for tracking evolution of a given topic utilizing subgraph containment in the hypergraph representation, and wherein the at least one interface feature for tracking evolution of a given topic permits selection of a given hypergraph edge to present a timeline showing the evolution of the given topic, with inputs from different nodes at particular times, associated with (i) the given hypergraph edge and (ii) one or more other hypergraph edges contained within the given hypergraph edge, and wherein the interactive visualization tool comprises at least one interface feature for identifying one or more connections between given persons participating in the dialog utilizing hypergraph edge counts pertaining to the number of hypergraph edges to which the nodes corresponding to the given persons are contributors; 
 wherein the steps are carried out by at least one computing device.